Passenger Brings Raw Eggs On A Plane, Breaks Them All Over The Seat And Floor — Then Flight Attendants Have To Clean It Up

I’ve seen some crazy messes in airplane cabins, but this video shows a large spill of broken raw eggs in an economy cabin, while a flight attendant deals with the mess. It’s hard to image bringing the eggs on board in the first place, and then breaking them. There appear to be about a dozen on the ground, and more on the seat.

You might expect this on Frontier Airlines but this actually happened in China, where passengers are even known to throw coins into the engines of their planes for good luck (aircraft engines are not wishing wells, and this is not good for them).

I think the smashed eggs look like they’re in the cabin of a China Southern Airbus narrowbody aircraft to me, but some readers will know better than I will. And I’d point out that:

  • Raw eggs are allowed! In the U.S., TSA says fresh eggs can be brought on board in both carry-on and checked baggage.

  • And if this is, in fact, China Southern, their baggage guidance says fragile and perishable items are unsuitable as checked baggage and should be brought into the cabin as unchecked baggage.

The smell issue here is real, but the “closed cabin for an hour” doesn’t seem quite right. Cabin air is refreshed every 2 to 3 minutes, or 20 to 30 times an hour, including HEPA filtration. Those don’t remove the tiny gas molecules (volatile organic compounds) that cause smells, which is why planes also generally have activated carbon filters. So the bigger issue may be the egg residue in carpet, seat cushions (though those can be changed out) and in the seat tracks.

In fairness, in the U.S. we’ve seen a passenger crack eggs on board as part of making pasta on their tray table. And badly packaged perishable food in the an overhead bin caused maggots to fall down on passengers on a Delta flight.

I just don’t understand leave that sort of a mess for flight attendants and aircraft cleaners. One Southwest flight attendant (their cabin crew tidy the planes between flights) actually announced that a flight wouldn’t depart until people cleaned up after themselves. As it should be – but a delay is too costly to an airline to actual follow through on that kind of threat as more than a one-off.

If cabin smell does become too burdensome from another passenger’s food items – like this passenger who opened a can of tuna or this one who peeled and ate a raw onion onboard – the best suggestion is to use coffee grounds from the galley.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Holy moly. That’s bad. I hoped that was AI, but it looks legit. Yikes. Gary’s typical “Clean. Your. Planes.” should also include ‘don’t let passengers with a dozen eggs on-board.’

  2. I believe mental illness checks are coming before one can fly, after seeing this I support it.

  3. Maybe someone carefully placed their luggage with the eggs but some thoughtless person came along and spilled them. As far as eggs smelling bad, that happens if they have spoiled. Fresh eggs that are not spoiled have very little odor. If the mess isn’t cleaned up, the eggs will start smelling bad.

  4. If you are angry at your bank, do you deposit a dead fish in their safe-deposit box to watch it gain interest?

  5. how about half the plane pouring hot sauce on their food on flights from the Caribbean

  6. Bringing raw eggs on board is setting the bar pretty high for Spirit and Frontier…perhaps even AA.

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